


what we have known

by roru



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, a lot of thoughts and feelings, as angsty as reynir could realistically get, finally wrote about the aftermath of tuuri’s death, hints of one sided reynni but not super heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 23:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roru/pseuds/roru
Summary: Reynir only knows two things: he had been a nuisance, and Onni was never really a hero.





	what we have known

Reynir is starting to believe he knows himself in all the wrong ways, nowadays. What he has known has been muffled, like fresh snow on old footsteps, concealing, covering, like secrets Reynir forgot. He knows himself not in the mirror of his bathroom at home but in the reflection of Kitty’s eyes, in the footsteps of his dog; he knows himself in the green-light of Onni’s dreams and in the dark seas in between. He knows himself nowadays the way he knows his crew-members; seldom and starving, desperate and cornered.

Reynir knows he is unknowledgeable. He knows he knows nothing. The life he used to be comfortable living in slips between his hands like water in a sieve, memories of dreams, footsteps concealed by fallen snow. The things he used to know, what he used to take for granted, fall from his mind. If he ever finds his way back home, would he even remember how to shepherd? How to wash dishes and make a bed? Would he remember his daily routine, the chores he had to do? How to be kind to his parents and feed the dogs and how to remember his dreams? Is this all just a dream he’s going to forget to remember? It’s started to feel like a dream, it’s started to feel like a bad dream. He’s felt like the smoke from her pyre has clouded his senses ever since. Reynir never remembered his dreams, and he never remembered his nightmares; so maybe, just maybe, he won’t remember this—but he wants to.

Tuuri was a bright part of this dream, and if he were to forget it, he’d hate to forget her along with it. Her humour, the lack of hard-edge in her words, the lack of hard-edge in any of her existence, the curves of her cheeks, lips curled up in a wry smile, hair tufted up at the front like the wool of a lamb. Light eyes and light hair and light words and a light touch. Tuuri was a part of this dream that Reynir found himself getting too comfortable with. He really did get too comfortable with their lack of immunity, didn’t he? Did Tuuri sometimes forget she was fallible, too? Did she ever feel like she could bridge the gap between worlds with her own arms? She was a brand of brave that Reynir had not known before. Reynir himself did not venture onwards to see the Silent World, after all; he only ended up in the crate because he was a coward. He was too scared to tell his parents goodbye to their conscious, awakened faces. Really, Tuuri was braver than anyone Reynir knew. He likes to tell himself that she was so brave that she wasn’t even scared, at the end.

Reynir may be a coward, but contrary to popular belief, he is not, he is trying not to be, an idiot.

Most of all, he is swept away by the fact that it should have been him. Even when he was scratched by the damn thing, it wasn’t him. It should have been him when Sigrun’s arm took the hit instead, it should have been him with Tuuri. Luck seems to always favour the coward. It should have been him. It would have been better if it were him. It should have been—

On the walk to the pick-up point, Reynir thinks about a lot of things that are out of his hands, and falls behind more than once. He thinks about a lot of things that were never in his hands in the first place, and he falls behind more and more. Onni, briefly, fit into both categories. Reynir thinks about how highly he regarded him. He thinks about how he used to think that being helpful to Onni’s cause was a direct source of happiness, and—maybe it was. He can’t think about the weight of a broad hand on the nape of his neck, or his own hands on Onni’s steadfast shoulders, pushing him across the dream-sea he didn’t realize he’d grow to hate. He can’t think about the way they sat shoulder to shoulder in front of that kind lady, like they might’ve been friends. He can’t think too long about if they were friends or not. Reynir was not terribly versed in the art of making friends, but maybe Tuuri and Onni were the beginnings of just that. He can’t think about it for too long at all. He falls behind.

Nowadays, Reynir only knows two things: he had been a nuisance, and Onni was never really a hero. He wishes he was—Reynir thought he might be. Reynir had never before encountered the bravery that Tuuri wore akin to their face masks before he had met her. Reynir had never before encountered something as remarkably confusing as her brother. Onni was something of a saviour, at some point or another, and Gods know he saved them all too many times to count properly...but Reynir can’t convince himself that he was ever a hero. Maybe he’s stupid to have looked up to him like he was—maybe he’s the idiot everyone thinks he is. Reynir was, after all, horribly persistent, to the point of embarrassment when he looks back on how he acted. He likes to think he’d never behave like that again, but when he finds himself bolting in the direction of the paw prints of his dog, he ends up being wrong.

If he focuses just hard enough, he can still feel where Onni punched him, in the side of his jaw, his teeth. He can still feel the bones of his back and his shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine all ache when he thinks about being shoved, just like their first meeting, against the rock. Reynir had deserved it then; if he is being cruel to himself, he’d say he deserves it now. He’s not sure if it’s a real injury still in the wakes of healing or if he just has a strong imagination. When that lovely, kind lady referred to Onni as Reynir’s sullen friend, he’d felt the same pain bloom up his spine, the same ache blossom in his teeth. It is a feeling he has not forgotten in a dream he still remembers. He wonders if it is a pain that will stay with him all the way back to Iceland. Once, his siblings got into a conversation over dinner about how sometimes, when the temperature dips low enough, they still feel their old wounds, scar tissue that won’t go away, the feeling of pain their body still, somehow, remembers.

If this is not just a horrible dream, then there is so much that Reynir is going to be carrying home with him.

Reynir thinks about a lot of things that are out of his hands. He thinks about everything too much, all at once, once the three of them arrive safely at the pick-up point; three people who all know, in the deep recesses of their hearts, that they would switch places with their fallen comrades immediately if the opportunity arose. He thinks about Onni, and if he would switch his place with the family he may have lost—Tuuri for certain and Lalli, missing in action—and Reynir thinks about how he would be too ready to jump into the ocean after either of them. He wishes he could see his parents again. He wonders if they’ve given up on him ever coming home. He wonders why he feels the same. He doesn’t know what he’ll come home to.

Aside from her brother, did Tuuri have anyone to come home to? What about Lalli? Will he and Onni be the only ones who miss them? Does Onni even have anyone to talk to? Reynir doesn’t know what he could’ve done better, he tried to help as much as he could, and it just wasn’t enough. He wishes it was. He wishes Onni just had someone to talk to—he knows it could never be him. Onni would not find solace in someone so horribly weak, someone that should’ve taken his sisters place in death, and Reynir still feels the pain of his fist on the side of his cheek. He knows now that Onni is not a hero. The things Reynir thought had been kind—the way he kept offering to guide the lady to a resting place, every time he looked out for the crew—seem like obligation, now, and seem terribly stale in the back of Reynir’s mouth, like milk gone sour, or tuna cans a decade old. Onni didn’t really want to help the lady who helped so many others, and he didn’t really care for Reynir’s safety. Tuuri even divulged in Reynir once, over a game of cards and a shared sense of boredom, that Onni was supposed to go on the mission too, but was just too scared. He wonders if Onni wishes he’d gone, now, and if he ever thinks about the woman he’d offered to guide towards the light. He wishes, stupidly, that he could tell Onni her name, that it was Anne. That he could tie a note detailing this to his sleeve on his sleeping form safely in his dreamspace, moving so quietly that Onni would never even realize he was there, like a mouse, or a ghost. Any threads of fate that still held Reynir to his dreamspace, still tempted him to cross the waters, would be cut off, tied, and then burnt when he reached his own space, and he would not go looking for Onni Hotakainen again. He would leave what they had in the limbo of the sea in between, without last words, just how they’ve always been.

At the end of a very long day, when Onni and himself once sat side by side, they were just two cowards shaped like they could’ve been friends.

**Author's Note:**

> recently, i’ve been thinking a lot about tuuri. i figured, reynir would too. because i’m predictable, it also turned into Thoughts About Onni, who in this, reynir may have had a small crush on (or maybe it was just misplaced hero-worshipping). i tried my hand at investigating the thoughts and feelings reynir might have at the end of this journey. i hope it comes off as in-character and accurate to an extent.  
> thank you for reading!


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